From left to right: Obour's manager,Nana Yaw Osei-Darkwa and Markus Lueck,General Manager of Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City

The new Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City, Accra is set to open in August 2013 and has already begun a rigorous recruitment drive to handpick the best local staff to work in the first truly luxury 5 star hotel in Ghana. It will also be Kempinski’s first grand hotel in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“A key part of the opening as well as the successful running of the hotel will be the quality of the talents it employs,” commented Markus Lueck, General Manager of the hotel.

“Kempinski’s guests expect the highest standards of service and the Kempinski Pathways Career Days are designed to find these ‘star’ candidates and introduce them to the Kempinski culture, build a sense of motivation for the role and ultimately hire the best staff available. We will be creating valuable employment with potential career opportunities for the workforce in Ghana.”

The first career fair took place from the 26th to the 27th of February 2013 for all supervisor and line staff positions. Over those 2 days, 1200 candidates, selected from 5,000 original applicants, keenly competed for just 300 final positions.

The process of selection was efficient and thorough, using a combination of tasks, presentations, discussions and games to assess participants’ suitability, presentation, social interaction and speech.

Above all, ‘Attitude before Aptitude’ was the key feature the interview team was looking for. The hotel believes the optimum skills required can be taught to the right people, with the right attitude, who show interest and a willingness to learn. Successful candidates were invited back for a further interview and the final selection was between the 14th and 22nd of March 2013.

The management of Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City was pleased with the success of their unorthodox approach to recruiting, where the main objective was to get to know the applicants, identify talents and potential talent for the hotel, as well as to give applicants the opportunity to learn more about this flagship property and to interact with senior management.

“We think that we have clearly shown that Kempinski is all about people and that we are committed to finding the right staff to operate the best hotel in West Africa,” Markus Lueck stressed.

Applicants responded very positively to this novel interviewing approach. Many were impressed with the organization of the career days and were intrigued by the extensive, interactive and unusual range of activities the hotel used to identify the types of personalities they were seeking to employ.

In line with the Kempinski Hotels’ strong commitment to ‘doing business responsibly’, Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City has already started work on its corporate social responsibility initiatives. One of its long-term projects is to raise awareness about the Tuberculosis disease (TB) and to the support the worldwide Stop TB campaign. TB is an infectious disease that is curable but has and continues to cause millions of deaths every year.

To that end, the hotel invited Obour alias Osei-Kuffour, the Stop TB Ambassador for Ghana and a popular musician, to use the last career day, Friday 22nd March, as a platform to sensitize prospective employees about the disease, two days before World TB Day on Sunday 24th March.

He was represented by his manager, Mr Nana Yaw Osei-Darkwa, who reiterated the message that the early diagnosis and quick treatment of TB could ultimately stop its spread and that testing was free in Ghana.

“Obour would like to express his gratitude to Kempinski Hotel, Gold Coast City for taking the bold step to change the face of CSR and congratulates the company for being the first of its kind to support the Stop TB campaign on a national level,” he added.

Kempinski Hotel ’s General Manager concluded by saying ,“As a people focused company, we ensure that our aim to raise awareness about TB starts early, with our potential workforce, who can in turn spread the word and educate their families and communities. Our staff must embody what Kempinski Hotel represents.”